


whomever breaks the sound barrier

by waycomb



Category: Marvel
Genre: Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13368771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waycomb/pseuds/waycomb
Summary: Heartbreak is a new medium for profit. And that’s just it - he’s finally gone and got his heart broken.(a story without a timeline)





	whomever breaks the sound barrier

Loki is only six when he starts abandoning his brother in favour of the library. He loves Thor but the games are tiring, repetitive, and Thor only likes the part where he and Sif fight. Loki doesn't hate bloodshed, he doesn't hate physical fighting. It's just that - well. What's the point? If there's naught to be gained he doesn't care. There are the parts of the game he loves, like discussing politics and defining boundaries against the other kingdom. But Thor is the golden-haired sweet-faced baby and he gets whatever he wants. In the library, Loki learns and he gets to do whatever _he_ wants. He spends hours reading of worlds beyond him, a time before him. He grows up among the oak shelves that smell of decaying paper and air that tastes of dust.

Frigga begins to teach him magic, sorcery, trickery. He takes to it like a fish to water, finally feeling like he’s found something he’ll be great at. Even better than strategy and planning and telling stories. In the morning are his lessons, the afternoon he’s alone in the library. He’s sure Odin knows but Loki’s never interrupted. Eventually, Loki learns enough to clean the shelves with his magic. It’s his only safe space and he intends to keep it pristine.

On his fifteenth birthday, he wanders into the library to find a slew of books and scrolls, all of them new, all of them from Midgard. He strokes them lovingly, and in the privacy of his loneliness, he allows himself a rare smile. From the courtyard, a blond head turns away from his sparring session to look at a distant window in the corner of the palace. He smiles in tune with his brother.

 

♾

 

Days later, Loki discovers one of the books is Norse poetry, ripped and torn with age already. He flips through it, wondering if he’ll understand the language. He does and it thrills him to his bones. He feels special in this instant, all the poetry is about _him,_ about his trickery and his games. It’s a sweet retelling of his life, lies more than any sort truth but it still makes his heart race with glee. Around the palace, he’s Frigga’s boy, Frigga’s magician, Frigga’s alone while Thor is everyone’s, and he does envy Thor but now he has _this_ which seems so much more. The title is something Loki doesn’t understand, but his fingertips ghost along the gold emboss anyways, like it’s a precious thing, like he can memorize it by touch.

He flips through it, reading stanzas and smiling like a lunatic. All of it - every single word - is drenched in worship, like he’s not some Odinson failure, but like he’s something in his own right. He thinks, yeah, he thinks he doesn’t need his father to tell him how much he can do.

A line in the book catches his attention. He rips out the page without remorse and heads to Frigga’s chambers for a lesson in control.

When he comes back, the book is gone. The gift had been extraordinary, he wouldn’t have minded keeping it, but some things, he knows at fifteen, are just meant to be brief. He thinks _Heimdall_ then doesn’t think about it again for centuries.

 

♾

 

Much, much later, pressed against a wall with a knife to his neck, Loki thinks of the line on that page, claiming to describe him. He thinks, if he had room to speak without slicing his own throat open, he’d recite the English translation to her.

_(pretty little songbird / built by blood / meant for war)_

Even though he doubts it could kill him, he doesn't appreciate the sentiment. He bares his teeth at the Avengers’ Black Widow and dares her to do it with his eyes. He wonders if she knows that Thor will make her death agony, wants to tell her that Thor’s seen pain beyond mortals. She doesn’t, but she calls for the others. Her eyes are steel-grey, the kind of grey that means metal, means dirt in the back of your mouth, means war.

He ends up in chains. Again.

 

♾

 

He doesn’t mind Midgard. Not nearly as much as the rest of the Asgardians do. He’s entertained the idea of becoming a king to rival Odin and they seemed a good place to start, sure, but king means consistency, which means control. He doesn’t give one fuck about that, god of chaos and all. He wonders what kind of hell he could wreck with a Midgardian-style food-fight. Privately, he thinks he could start one in the Avengers’ cafeteria. He’d have to avoid hitting the one that turns into the Hulk. Or maybe not, he muses.

He hears the automatic slide of the door and feels Thor’s presence before he sees him, but in between the feeling and seeing, Thor speaks. “You’ve got to stop committing crimes.”

Loki rolls his eyes. “Chaos is without structure; no crime means structure. Gotta commit the crimes to keep the vicious cycle going.”

He sees the line of Thor’s mouth harden, his eyes flashing thunderstorm-dark. Loki hates that Thor treats him like this, like he’s this lost person who can be saved by Seeing The Light or whatever. He’s not, technically, a villain. It’s just that the things he likes happen to inconvenience a large majority of other people. The right kinds of people don’t mind. While you may point out that he’s committed murders, it’s only fair to point out that Thor has too.

“You’re better than that.”

Loki looks him in the eye. “You don’t know what I am.”

 

♾

 

Loki’s only thirteen when he learns to shift his shape into whatever he likes. He becomes a fox and curls his body around Frigga’s feet as she conducts the afternoon court. The sun falls through the glass walls of the palace onto his back, warming him. He half-listens, half-naps as Frigga’s voice floats around the room, joining and occasionally obscuring other’s. He pricks his ears when a harp starts to play but makes no effort to leave Frigga’s side. He’s comfortable where he is, and the people in court like him. They don’t like him nearly as much as they like Thor, but he’s charming and flamboyant and he listens more than he talks.

When Frigga finally nudges him gently off of her feet for supper he uncurls and stretches indulgently. He falls into step behind her as she heads towards the great doors. He transforms into himself mid-stride, leaving shocked gasps and awed whispers behind. As the heavy door bangs shut he smiles, broadly. He and Frigga head to the dining hall in silence, even though he feels her pride radiating from her like an aura. _My son is impressive,_ she seems to say. He senses the _Finally, impressive,_ there too, but decides to ignore it.

He sits across from Thor at dinner. He doesn’t know why, but his stomach is in knots at seeing his brother. Loki saw him yesterday, logically, there’s no reason for him to worry. But he does, just sits there, not touching his meal while he watches Thor laugh at jokes. Eventually, Thor turns his head and meets Loki’s gaze. Loki turns away, to look at the wall instead. When they’re dismissed for bed, Thor runs after Loki and catches him at the grand staircase.

“Are you alright?” He asks. He looks so young, still three inches shorter than Loki, cheeks puffing with air.

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Thor frowns at him like he can’t tell if it’s a joke. He shrugs, then, little shoulders lifting carelessly like _Fine, I’ve got better places to be_ and Loki feels snubbed. They were inseparable, at one point, before it became obvious who Odin favoured. He misses that. Maybe, now that he can shift without incident, maybe they can be like that again. His hand shoots out and grabs Thor’s elbow before Thor can leave and before Loki can tell himself it’s stupid.

“Wait,” he says, vaguely panicked. Thor does, looking at him with eyebrows drawn down. Loki hesitates, then says, “I want to show you something.”

 

♾

 

His father is the one that calls Loki home. Not Laufey, but Odin, whispering into his head like he’s always been there. He says something Loki doesn’t catch, but it rips out his chest and scares him like he’s lost something valuable. He returns to Asgard without thinking, without pause, without even a moment to wonder if it’s a trap. He comes up the Bifrost, speeds past the moron guarding it, and across the bridge. He bursts into the throne room and Frigga freezes, as does everyone else in the court.

“What’s wrong?” He demands because he hates his father, not his homeworld. She licks her lips, relaxing a dozen fractions, ensuring everyone else in the room does the same.

“There’s a disease,” she begins. “Gefjun has been kidnapped.”

Loki knows without Frigga telling him, knows because Odin whispers to him, calling _help us, you’re our only hope_ and he wants to. So he nods, waves his hand and a fur cloak falls over his green tunic and ties his hair up with rope. He doesn’t ask for it, but a sledge arrives bearing essentials right before he leaves. He nods once, without really looking back at the court as he climbs onto the horse ready to bear him. The Asgardian winters are harsh, they break men triple what Odin is. The snow falls heavy, covering his head and shoulders thickly within moments. He thinks of Emil and black coffee and smiles before he goes off to his almost-certain demise.

 

♾

 

He finds the lab through a rumour. He’s the first there and only one there. It’s abandoned, crazy half experiments frozen in their cages, sick and frail or too drugged up to mind about their demise. It’s eerie, the carcasses of chimaeras and research papers scattered around. The wind howls around and outside the metal walls, sounding too loud in here, alone. His boots clamp loudly and he wishes they wouldn’t. He wanted to come here to see if there was anything salvageable to give his contacts. Stir up a little mutated problem for the mortals, possibly. But now he’s here, standing alone in the freezing cold, breathing in and looking at the atrocities he feels - weirdly, wholly, unequivocally - at peace.

He doesn’t want to take anything from here so he doesn’t, just wanders the lonely halls and snoops in all the rooms. He spends hours marvelling at the animals, scanning notes left and wondering what put the blood on the walls. He tasted it, just a little. It’s not mortal blood.

He leaves, out the back way, and finds that he wants to stroll through the snow instead of just leaving to find something better than an abandoned mutation lab. He follows his whimsy, breathing in the cool, sharp air, admiring the blue sky. He’d never been to Greenland before now, not even while pissing off the Avengers. Twenty meters from the lab he sees a bright orange coat bobbing in the snow. Loki freezes and considers his options. He could ignore the mortal, he could teleport away, he could -

“Did you come from o’er there?”

Loki startles and meets warm brown eyes set in a brown face. The man grins, and Loki notices his freckles before he notices the accent. He’s a native and, by the looks of the equipment scattered at his feet, an expert in something.

“Sorry,” he says, laughingly. “Didn’t mean to spook you. Did you come from over there?” This time, Loki sees him point to the lab, a squat metal building set against the backdrop of white. It looks foreboding.

“Yes,” Loki says.

“Oh,” he says. “You must be magic, then.”

Loki cocks an eyebrow at him. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, it’s haunted, you see,” he grins. “Why else hasn’t anything made it theirs?”

 

♾

 

That was the first and last time Loki invited Thor into the library. He showed his brother his reading nook, a space that was moulded to his body perfectly and left him feeling cosy in all the right places. He’d settle in and read for hours, and it never mattered how he acted in here because no one ever saw. It made him leap out of his skin, jump around the gargantuan space like it was his brain, scattering sketches and pieces of text he couldn't forget, reminders and ideas to improve spells an equally scattered mess about.

For the first time, Loki feels not envious or angry is his brother's presence. He feels - stupidly - exposed. Thor smiles. It's the last moment Loki shows vulnerability for a very long time.

 

♾

 

The Tesseract incident wasn't the first time Loki’s ever spent time Midgard. He spends quite a lot of time there, when Odin’s stare is heavy with disappointment and Frigga is too busy fighting a war to mind what he does. He disappears for a while. He never spends more than a year there, because humans are boring and unknowingly repetitive. But, they are full of surprises.

He turns into a Chinese Sparrowhawk sometime during the 19th century and visits the Great Wall. Privately, Loki thinks that Asgard is grander, stronger, like something that might never die. It's impressive, even so. He thinks of the mortals he’s talked to, briefly. They made this. He wonders why then stops caring.

In 1943 all the mortals are fighting a war. Against each other, against time, Loki doesn’t know. But he likes their moving pictures. Even though there’s no colour and no sound it’s nice, sitting in the dark theatre and watching every life the mortals deem important flash by. There are the newsreels, sad snippets of real-time updates that make the crowd go sombre and hardly breathe. Loki doesn’t like those, both because he doesn’t care about their fleeting lives and petty disagreements and because there’s no segway in between these broken images and the hilarious cartoons that come next. It has the crowd doubling over, giggling and clutching their stomachs. It's a pendulum swing and Loki can’t even predict where it will land.

 

♾

 

The man in the orange coat is called Emil, he studies the ice and likes the way Loki looks, or something, because he invites him back to Emil’s little cottage ‘some ways away’. When the man asks his name, Loki pauses for half a second too long and his eyebrows shift. Loki compensates with an awkward smile, a tiny lift of his shoulders.

“I haven’t really met anyone new in a while. I’m not used to introducing myself. I’m Lukas,” he offers his hand, because even Clint Barton did that under the mind control. Emil’s hand is warm through his thin leather gloves and it’s startling after being alone and cold on his own for so long.

“No gloves?” He asks softly. He drops Loki’s hand and puts his own in his pocket. “You should come back to mine. Warm up with a coffee.”

And that’s how Loki ends up in a forest-green jeep, bumping along dirt roads with snow piled on the sides, watching the grey skies fly by even as the sun sets. He doesn’t know what to think, but Emil’s got soft country music on the car radio and while most of it sounds gibberish to his ears, Emil sings along softly. Loki makes a mental note to learn Kalaallisut. He likes the man, he seems soft and kind and in his twenties, which Loki is - technically - not, but, well, physically. He’s never liked anyone before, expect maybe Sif for a moment too long. She hates him though, one of the people who like to call him ‘traitor’. Emil doesn’t seem like he’d do that, not ever.

 

♾

 

He’s an Avengers ally, now. It’s strange, fighting alongside his brother again, but the destruction of his favourite playground isn’t exactly ideal. Sometimes he has to compromise. He still works with Thor seamlessly, still knows him the best and it rankles. After centuries of fighting against him, he thought maybe his body would forget Thor’s. Hope, apparently, still manages to find him.

They’re pressed against the harbour, facing off against some wolf-people hybrids that Loki’s actually curious about, when Barton’s voice crackles over the comm. His dagger strikes true and flies back to his hand at a gesture.

“Nice shot,” he says, sounding surprised.

“Less than a year ago he had you brainwashed,” Captain America says. “Let’s not get chummy with the enemy, capiche?”

Later, Loki remembers the exchange. His hands ghost over the cool metal of the Winter Soldier’s arm, a smile on his face. He wonders if the hypocrisy stings the team. If they want to talk body-count, if that’s what they’re saying makes Loki an enemy… well. Now he supposes he has a new debate source. That’s always fun. He slips away as easily as he came, through the concrete walls and back to the Bifrost, where Heimdall lets him up. They look at each other in silence. Loki respects the man so much, but sometimes. All-seeing eyes get annoying.

Heimdall opens his mouth and Loki watches as it drifts shut without a sound. Loki doesn’t care, not really, and assumes the form that makes him look like Odin. He walks towards the bridge, but the clearing of a throat stops him. He pauses, waiting without turning around. He shifts back to himself, knowing it’s what Heimdall wants for what he’s going to say.

“If you think you’ve been lost...”

“I haven’t.”

“Then you’re not. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”

 

♾

 

They get snowed in at Emil’s tiny house four months after they meet, during one of the many times Loki’s visited since then. Emil is the only friend Loki has had in a very, very long time. Since before, well. Since before the Odinsleep Thing. It’s different from being friends as children. Instead of sitting on the floor playing with toys, Loki sits on the worn armchair by the fire while Emil spreads out on the green sofa, papers scattered on the coffee table in front of him. He listens quietly to Emil ramble about his research while Loki nurses a cup of rich, dark coffee, alternating staring out the window and watching Emil throw his hands about in passion.

Emil likes the old legends, he’s a physicist who’s working on space travel theory. What that has to do with the snow, Loki’s got no idea. But when Emil talks about it, it sounds fascinating, like it actually makes some sort of sense. He talks a lot about the Norse gods too, Loki tries not to act like he knows to much. He slips up once or twice, and Emil just gives him a sly, knowing smile.

“You an ancient myths kinda guy, then?”

And Loki has no choice other than to smile sheepishly and mutter, “Yeah.”

He asks himself, once, before they get snowed in, why he’s keeping his identity from Emil. Probably because of the ‘almost took over Earth’ thing. Maybe it’s something worse. It’s easier to answer to Lukas than Loki, though, he finds. He knows he’s fallen off the grid lately, probably worrying the Avengers or something. He doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter, though. Thor’s found his family - his other family. Loki’s just looking for his now. It’s fair, isn’t it?

Excitedly, Emil bounds down the stairs and into the kitchen where Loki is watching the snow fall through the window, heavy and constant, no signs of letting up anytime soon. Emil shows him an old book, cover worn beyond recognition, corners frayed badly. It’s in terrible condition, but there are sticky notes flagging pages, passages Emil must’ve liked best.

“I found it,” he admits. “I was fifteen. It was my birthday, and it was hidden in the attic of my granddad’s barn. But hey, you like myths about the Norse, right? It’s got a missing page, but other than that...”

Numbly, Loki reaches into the pocket of his black (tasteful, matches the turtleneck and the long sweepy coat hung up on the coat rack, thank you very much) trousers and extracts a folded, creased page. He’d cast a preservation charm on it when he was younger so all the words are bold and visible. Silently he passes the paper to Emil, who takes it so gently, like he cares a great deal about what Loki cares about. He feels rather like he’s thirteen again, letting someone into his library. Last time, it ended badly. Maybe it won’t now.

 

♾

 

When Loki was seven years old, Thor came down with a terrifying sickness. All children get sick - even gods. That’s not the part that scared Frigga and Odin. It was the nightmares, the terrible terrors that had him sitting straight up in his bed at some unholy hour of the night, screaming his lungs out like they’ve been breached. Loki would sit bolt upright in bed as Frigga’s footsteps raced past his door, heart thudding so fast he’d think it was going to jump out. Loki thinks of that at ten years old, watching his brother getting along so easily with the others in the courtyard, shouting and laughing together while Loki watches, alone, from the terrace.

He knows Thor doesn’t understand it (perhaps he won’t, ever) but Loki feels less like a mysterious shadow and more like a roly-poly being stood on by a horse. Bug enthusiasts will say that the roly-poly is just as impressive while everyone will look to the horse. Frigga is a bug enthusiast. Not literally - just in the metaphor. Oh, well. Frigga is a Loki enthusiast, she loves her son like no one else can ever love Loki. Even after he spells the flowers to squirt people in the face and he slips a vial of bubbly laughter potion into the midday mead. That’s the time he starts to like trouble-making. It gets him attention that doesn’t have to do with Thor.

He remembers how scared he’d been of losing his little brother, his baby brother, who trailed behind him and looked at Loki like he was the only thing worth looking at. Now, Loki wonders how different he’d feel if he knew how much of an outcast they’d make him. He doubts he would’ve snuck into Thor’s room after his parents left, humming lullabies and stroking Thor’s face, whispering spells for strong recoveries.

Then again, he knows he’d do it all over again.

 

♾

 

He’s huddled against the wall, breathing heavy and terrified. A woman (he knew her, once, possibly) with warm brown eyes and lips red like roses kneels in front of him. She presses a cool hand to the back of his forehead and searches his eyes. Disoriented and frozen, he lets her. She coos at him, brings his hands out from where they’re tucked under his armpits and massages warmth into them. She whispers, “Oh, my boy, my boy,” over and over again. He doesn’t know who her boy is.

He wakes in a tent, fire crackling at the centre of it, demanding attention and buoying the roof of the tent so it bubbles like a dome. He wonders who dragged him in from the cold, who would look for him to save like that. Besides Thor, but Thor is… not in Asgard. He tries to remember what happened after that explosion but draws a blank. Horrified with himself, he sits up, and a fur blanket falls away to reveal that his tunic and coat have been taken. Across the fire they lay, drying, possibly. In the corner, a shadow shifts, and from it a snake crawls out. He watches as it morphs from reptile to woman, to Frigga.

He looks at her as she moves to sit beside him, eyeing the thin silver crown she wears. She’s bundled in furs and her nose is pink from the cold. She reaches into her pocket and extracts a familiar, worn paper. Frigga draws her knees up, smoothes out the wrinkles of the paper on her thigh. He watches as she traces the curl of Emil’s handwriting, the dip in the k and the swoop of the e. Under the original script, under where Loki wrote the current Norse translation, Emil has written, in English, as a joke, _pretty little peacock / built for war._

“You think this defines you,” Frigga says, voice soft in a way Loki can’t describe. She raises her head so their eyes meet. “It does not.”

 

♾

 

He returns to Emil because he cannot think to do anything else. He opens the door the second time Loki raps his sore knuckles against the soft wood. His cottage is sweet, rundown but familiar. In another life, Loki would long to call this home. His hands reach out and automatically go to Loki’s shoulders. He’s got a worried smile on his face as he scans Loki up and down. He lets Loki in, installing him safely on the sofa before coming back with two cups of steaming coffee.

Loki takes it gratefully and sighs with relief. “I missed this,” he admits.

“I missed you,” Emil says immediately, then looks away, face curling into regret. There’s a beat of silence where Loki struggles with how to respond, heart clenching and unclenching painfully. Just as he opens his mouth to finally say something, Emil beats him to it.

“Lukas,” he says, voice serious. “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on. Are you okay?”

Loki opens his mouth, staring at Emil’s honest eyes. But the moment passes and Loki startles, looking away uneasily. His fingers grip the hot ceramic tight, trying to ground himself to the moment, trying not to get swept up in a tide of centuries-old paranoia. He should tell him, probably. They’ve been friends for almost two years, now, and he did kind of fall off the face of the planet for three or four months, there. Why shouldn’t he tell Emil? Emil is kind and he makes Loki coffee, calls him Lukas like it’s the most tender name ever said and he touches, a lot. It had taken quite a while for Loki to loosen up to it, but it had happened and he discovered how much he liked the simple intimacy of a hand on his elbow, cradling the small of his back, pressed against his shoulder. Loki’s mind trips through the last years, offering up moments where Loki felt so cared for, felt like he could trust again.

He turns back to Emil, shoulders squaring themselves. He hopes Emil knows how much he means to Loki, how much it takes out of him to do this. Emil looks back steadily, waiting patiently. He could probably wait a century for Loki and Loki rather - embarrassingly - likes it.

He takes a deep breath (inhale four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight) and tells Emil everything.

 

♾

 

It’s weird, he thinks, being in SHIELD headquarters out of chains and without a heavily armed escort. This time his escort is merely Thor, Captain America and Dr. Bruce Banner, who Loki tries not to look in the eye. It’s fine, though, other than that. They walk into the conference room where the other Avengers are sitting, Stark lounging in the one across from Black Widow and Hawkeye, Fury glowering at them from the head of the table. Loki manages a bland smile for them, going for as non-threatening as possible.

None of them seem particularly worried about him. Captain America drifts over to Stark and Banner immediately to Widow and Clint Barton. Thor presses his fingertips into the small of Loki’s back and propels him further into the room. Loki chooses the seat to Fury’s right. Fury gives him a hard once-over, single eye glinting in the fluorescent light. Loki barely stops himself from pointing out that Fury reminds him of Odin.

“First of all, I would like to thank Loki for helping us with the wolf issue,” Fury says, pausing. Everyone looks at Loki, who merely raises an eyebrow, steepling his fingers together and not saying a word. “Second of all, we have to discuss the wanton destruction of Downtown Manhattan during the sentient purple goo monsters incident.”

Loki and Stark sigh in exasperation at the same time. He’s certain the man doesn’t like him - and he doesn’t love Stark, either - but the moment rather feels like one of camaraderie. It’s going to be a long afternoon.

 

♾

 

It takes him days in the snow to travel East, where Gefjun had been reportedly last seen. He stops in the scattered villages and tries not to stare too hard at the deformed children and sickly infants. No mothers are out of their cabins and Loki is silently grateful - he’s not one to stomach deformities. The loss of Gefjun, her possible injury and her almost-certain pain have taken a serious toll on the Asgardians. She’s the goddess of child-bearing, fertility, and without her children and women suffer. It could wipe out more than half their population and it’s not even fatal. Warts cover the skin and face, pimpling over lips and eyelids, bursting with sour-smelling liquid whenever prodded too hard.

He’s not sure why he’s doing it. Curiosity. Because he loves his mother. He keeps going, calling up traces of Gefjun’s magic when he needs a light to guide him through the devastating blizzards. His horse is tired but strong and loyal. He pulls off her saddle and settles her in the tent with him when he stops at night. He doesn’t really sleep, but she does. One night she wakes, and they look at each other over the crackling fire Loki magicked. Her eyes are brown and kind, staring at him as if she was human. He looks away uneasily, supremely disturbed over the face he was about to engage an animal in conversation. It’s too lonely out here.

That makes him think of Emil, his hands and his nice smile and all the silly things he says that make Loki laugh. If Thor knew about Emil he might say something like _I’ve never known you so soft._ He’s very glad Thor doesn’t know about Emil.

Eventually, he tracks Gefjun to Aegir, a sea Jötunn who has never once caused problems for the Aesir before. There’s a first time for everything, though, Loki thinks, creeping up to a brick building he’s never seen the likes of in Asgard before. He conjures three replicas of himself and squares his shoulders.

“I’ll give you to the count of three to do this nicely,” he says.

 

♾

 

He’s seventeen when he shaves Sif’s hair and gets in trouble for it. It’s funny - of course it is, she’s got no hair - but Thor doesn’t care. He’s livid, demanding Loki’s head as retribution for humiliating his girlfriend. He thinks that if it really mattered to her, Sif would rein her own storm of fury on Loki. And, okay, he’s not actually demanding Loki’s head for it, but it’s pretty damn close. He glances up from his fingernails to look down his nose at Thor, who’s standing in the middle of the throne room, practically foaming at the mouth. Loki’s leaning against Frigga’s throne, Odin on the other side of her, far away from Loki. They listen to Thor with calm eyes, silent and almost completely uncaring.

“I’m not giving you my daggers,” Loki says like he’s saying _the weather’s nice, isn’t it?_ Thor just gets madder at that, looking to Odin with betrayed eyes.

“So you’re just going to let him get away with it?” He demands.

“Well, no,” Odin says, looking to Frigga for help.

“Of course not,” she agrees.

Loki jumps in before they can propose a punishment for him. Loki knows, as all children do, that anything parents can come up with will be far worse than punishing yourself. They hesitate when he offers to be the one that fashions Sif a wig but brighten at the prospect of him asking the dwarves to be the ones to perform the task. He leaves the next morning, following the trail down to the dwarfish caves. Their magic is far different from Loki’s, fairies and sprites and creatures who embody it, rather than merely channelling it and using it. They _are_ magic and it makes him uneasy. The forest is bright, one of those rare summer days where all the clouds have gone from sight and it’s just him and the trees and the sun.

 

♾

 

He spends Christmas with Emil, who isn’t religious himself but flies back to Great Britain to visit his family anyways. On the flight there, Emil steals looks at Loki, clearly wanting to ask a question. Eventually, Loki grows tired of it and meets his eyes.

“What is it?” He asks, prepared to wait.

Emil bites his lip. Loki finds it odd, usually Emil never hesitates, never minces his words or thinks about them until it’s too late. It’s probably flattering that he's thinking now, then.

“It’s just… don't you have a family? I was surprised you said yes to coming. And I can’t really think of another reason you’d be here…”

Loki looks away uncomfortably. Emil had given him the window seat, reasons unknown, and Loki takes advantage of it, staring out over the white puffy clouds they’re encased in. He thinks of Frigga, the last time he saw her, eyes filled with tears as he ruined everything. He thinks of Odin, who may have loved in him in some twisted way but never really showed it. He thinks of Thor, red-cheeked, bright-eyed baby Thor and how he loves Loki without pause, how he trusts him even when everyone else says it’s a bad idea.

“I had a family, once,” he admits, and it burns far hotter than any fire ever could. “They all left me.”

 

♾

 

He reaches the caves by midday. He slides off his grey mare and leans against the entrance, peering into the semi-darkness, watching the dwarves work as the gold they pound illuminates much more than the immortal fires they stoke could. He’s been here, once before, with Frigga. He doesn’t remember why, but he remembers the way they looked at him like they could smell the magic brewing in his bones far before it was any sort of manifestation.

Slowly, the dwarves begin to notice is presence. When Dolish, the eldest, steps forward and demands to know what a god wants from them (lowly and tired of being taken advantage of) Loki explains his predicament with little glee. The dwarves laugh at him and Loki says nothing. He calls their creations beautiful, calls them talented and says that they should be respected for what they make than rather how they look. The dwarves look at each other, uneasy because no one in Asgard appreciates magic creatures that look like they were shaped from lumps of clay.

Except Loki.

So they make Sif a wig, and when Loki jokingly says they could not possibly make something grander than this, hair from solid gold and they frown, square their shoulders and stick out their little pudgy hands.

“Make it a wager, then,”

Loki looks at the hand and takes it. “I bet you three books. One written by Odin, one of The Hanging King, and the last about my mother before she was queen.”

He spends three days camping outside the caves, petting the nose of his grey mare and watching with soft eyes as birds flit around in the canopy. On the dusk of the first day, the dwarves present Loki with a whole ship and when he touches it, it folds to fit in his pocket. He lets out a low whistle, impressed. The second day they give him a spear that never misses its target. The third, they present Loki with a hammer. Loki rolls his eyes at it, bored.

“What’s that, then?”

Offended, the dwarves all cross their little arms and glare at him. “It is called Mjolnir, and whoever wields it is worthy to rule Asgard.”

Loki, timid and only seventeen, who knows his place is the pretty boy by Frigga’s side, the nobody that never gets the glory, never finds love, can feel bile rise in his throat at the mockery the dwarves are making of him. Still, he reaches out, hand shaking slightly as his fingers wrap around the handle of Mjolnir. He pauses before he tries to lift it, breathes in and out, slowly. He pulls and it comes off the stone easily, like it was made for him.

He smiles the whole ride back home.

 

♾

 

In the end, Aegir wants to do it the hard way, so that’s what Loki does. Or, rather, attempts to do, because while not particularly clever, the giant is large and angry. His eyes are clouded with red, cheekbones and nose dusted with blood and Loki knows the spell, makes his stomach tip in cold horror. Aegir is being controlled by someone far stronger than a god, someone well versed in dark magic Loki has never had the wherewithal to look at before. He’s not entirely sure what happens, one moment, he’s fighting for his life while a tied up and gagged Gefjun sits, tossed aside in the snow, and the next an explosion is rocking the building Loki’s back is against, throwing him head over heels into the ice.

He sits up blearily as the fire crackles and grows around the brick and wood and sees, through blurry eyes, the figure of Aegir escaping, Gefjun strapped to his back. He makes it to his knees before his whole body protests in agony, forcing him to slump over in the snow bank once again.

He wakes to the ashes of a burnt house, sun shining white in the sky, freezing cold despite no more snow falling. He wonders, briefly, what happened and where he is. He looks at his hands, trying to remember what could have brought him out in the snow, alone. He stands up, brushing himself off and looks around, prodding his legs and wincing at the burst of sharp, sudden pain. He remembers… well. Not much. A pair of sturdy hands (not his own, surely), scars and calluses criss-crossing stark-white against the brown skin. Bright blue eyes framed by laugh wrinkles at a young age, stringy blond hair falling into them. No names come with the images and they’re gone as soon as they drift to him. He forgets he ever thought of it, pulling his legs out from where he’s sunk into the snow and spots a horse.

As soon as he clambers on to the animal he forgets what it’s called, if it’s called anything at all. He shakes his head viciously and some red powder falls from his hair to his leather gloves, mixing with the snow there. He stares at it, nagging feeling in his stomach, then he shrugs, opens his mouth to say something, anything, but even his tongue can’t remember words to form.

“Asavassi!” he says. He has a feeling the word is very important, that he had made it to say to someone, to tell…

He loses the train of thought within seconds. All he knows for certain is that he’s cold and he doesn’t want to be out here anymore. He touches the animal, trying to figure out how to encourage it to move, but it does it all on its own. He smiles, proud at getting something to happen. They move, hopefully away from more snow, but he knows not where. He thinks, suddenly, vaguely panicked, didn’t he have a name? Something, he must have, possibly… and they move, hopefully away from more snow, but he knows not where.

 

♾

 

He tells Emil all the old, grisly details. He talks for hours about growing up, about being overshadowed by a younger sibling, how he did dirty things to get attention. He tells about Laufey and his frost giant heritage, how broken, cleaved in half he felt when he knew. He tells Emil about the months he spent back in Asgard, searching for Gefjun to bring her home for his people. Loki tells him about meeting Aegir under control of a Dark spell, how he fell victim to one himself. Weeks of amnesia, wandering the countryside and encountering Draugr that chilled his spine when he didn’t know what they were.

He confides that he has lapses, momentary ones where he forgets everything he’s ever known that terrify him unlike anything he’s ever met before. He tells Emil about tracking down the origin of the spell - an entire village had banded together, fueled by rage, they spawned a Ganglati who longed to wreck Asgard - and dismantling it with Frigga, how good it felt to be close to his mother that way again. Emil watches him with dark eyes the whole time, smiling and nodding in all the right places, looking appropriately horrified when Loki mentions that sometimes he thinks he and Stark could become friends, and Loki can feel it at the tip of his tongue, an important phrase, something that would change him far more than a million years alive ever could.

He falls silent, heart beating fast. He knows that mortals talk about _the moment_ (something he never thought he’d experience for himself - at least, not genuinely) and all the moments leading up to _the one_ and now he’s here, in it, he feels horribly inadequate. Emil is confident, one of those people born knowing what he wants, and Loki feels like the stupidest person in the room. He puts his coffee down on the table without breaking eye contact with Loki and it makes his insides turn to jelly. Emil walks over to him, and reaches down to lace their fingers together loosely, so the contact is barely noticable. Loki shivers anyway. Emil tugs Loki to his feet, so they’re standing in the living room, separated by nothing but air. _Greenland_ , he thinks. _Something good enough to call home._

 

♾

 

He's days away from leaving home for the first time when Jarnsaxa - who is kind and strange and not a bit like the Jötunn the Aesir tell stories about - grips his hand a bit too tight and smiles at him, pinched and strained. Her eyes beg him and so he goes willingly, following her out into the courtyard where she looks around anxiously, like she’s terrified of being seen with him. Her voice is low and strained, barely audible above the breeze.

“Thor is with Sif, but he courts me now,” she says, eyes brimming with tears. “He had his way with me - but I am afraid he will cast me aside and she will find out. I do not wish for the wrath of a goddess.”

For hours, Loki is blindly furious. Jarnsaxa has never done anything equal to the humiliation Thor is choosing to put her at risk for. She speaks quietly and only to other Jötunn and Loki, probably because he is like her, visibly shunned - he, from his family and her, from the court she was raised in. Thor rarely thinks of anyone but himself. Loki does, though, that’s the difference between them. He knows that this will make the Asgardian subject lose all respect for him and that’s not even accounting the toll this will take on Frigga and Odin.

He receives a note, begging him to attend afternoon court in curly, precise handwriting. It looks like how her voice sounds and he thinks, briefly, of how hurt Sif would be to know of Thor’s affair and his stomach clenches. This isn’t the first time he’s been unfaithful since they were fifteen and Loki doubts it will be the last. He shows up just in time for Frigga to hold up her hand, stopping the harp player. Loki beats them all to it, voice rising above, louder and angrier than the whole room.

“Thor,” he booms - and he didn’t know he could boom. “You’ve you've taken advantage of a girl again. Stay away from Jarnsaxa. She wants a part of you not.”

Thor looks at him, eyes wide in surprise, mouth open slightly. Loki doesn’t miss the way Thor’s arm tightens around Sif, like he’ll protect and love her like no one else. Loki’s stomach turns as the court murmurs in confusion, eyeing him like a goat with wings and the head of a fox.

“You spread lies, man of darkness. You have attended court not for years - since you ended your training. You are a trickster, awarded title of chaos maker for your jokes,” Thor snaps, low and furious. “You were my brother - now you are a traitor to me.”

He looks into Thor’s eyes and sees it all there, bare and naked for him to see. Thor is ruining Loki to protect himself, betraying him in a way that cannot be undone. _Heartbreak is a new medium for profit,_ Lok thinks. _A profit from minds easily turned._ And that’s just it - he’s finally gone and got his heart broken. And by his very own brother, no less.

 

♾

 

Years, or maybe it’s days, later, Loki laughs himself awake in bed, Emil pressed flush against his back. He can feel Emil’s grin on the nape of his neck. It’s still new, novel, really nice to have. Loki’s not tired, he rarely ever is, but this is too good for him to ever pass up.

“What?” Emil asks, amused at a joke he hasn’t yet heard.

“I was just thinking - you must be magic,” Loki says.

“What?” Emil laughs, not understanding.

“I’m haunted, you see,” he says, and he couldn’t tell you why he’s still smiling like a lunatic. “Why else hasn’t anybody made me theirs?”

**Author's Note:**

> Asavassi - 'I love you' in Kalaallisut


End file.
